Hello. Does anyone know where I could get a replacement set? I seem to have misplaced the ones that came with my kit. Or, sould I try to tie my own? Any suggestions welcome! Thanks!!
Tie your own certainly.
There’s a lot of ways to do it and they all work out fine. Better than the stuff the kit gives you.
First a little vocabulary. The heavy lines running from the sides of the ship to the mastheads are called shrouds. They’re important structural parts of the ship’s rigging. The ratlines, which are much thinner, run horizontally across the shrouds and serve as ladders for the crewmen going aloft.
I always encourage people to rig their own shrouds and ratlines. It isn’t as hard as a lot of people seem to think - and once you’ve rigged a few of your own, you’ll almost certainly conclude that those plastic-coated thread things that come in the kits are pretty hideous. (Besides, it’s almost impossible to get them taut.)
The shrouds of the Cutty Sark are made of rope, and so are her ratlines. The shrouds are supposed to be looped around the mastheads; each shroud goes up from the deadeye, around the masthead, and down to the next deadeye on the same If you do a Forum search on “ratlines,” you’ll find quite a few posts that explain a couple of ways of doing it. If this is the first time you’ve tried it, I’d suggest the “needle through the shroud” trick. [later edit: somehow or other part of that last sentence initially got dropped. Sorry about that.] But tying them like the originals, with clove hitches to hold them to the shrouds, isn’t really so difficult - and the Cutty Sark, with only a few shrouds per mast, isn’t such a bad model to learn how to do it on.
Several Forum participants have urged newcomers to use overhand, or square, knots instead of clove hitches, but I’ve never been able to figure out why. The clove hitch is just about the easiest knot there is. Here’s a web page that explains it: http://www.google.com/url?ysa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHf6bbQKj1X4&ei=eZFQVKjVN8yxyATs-4CICQ&bvm=bv.78597519,d.aWw&psig=AFQjCNGXmZqq2JY81rwNdUxIjaOq48N6vA&ust=1414652664768479
I’ll offer once more an observation I’ve made often in this Forum: rigging ratlines is pretty simple. It does have a learning curve, which is kind of steep but remarkably short. My guess is that, if you’ve never done it before, the first ratline you rig will take you ten to fifteen minutes. The second will take about half that. And by the time you get to the masthead you’ll be tying one every minute or two, and wondering why people make such a fuss about tying ratlines.
Even though I have done many sail vessels, I build other things, and so get out of practice tying ratlines. When I then start on a new sailing ship, the first set of ratlines takes forever (well, a couple of hours, anyway). But that is just getting the brain to finger nerves retrained. The second set goes faster- by the second mast I find I am not even thinking of what I am doing, the inner levels take over and do the work while my mind wanders about shoes, and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages …
Anyways, the message is that it is just one more skill to learn, and hand mounted and tied shrouds and ratlines will always look better than jig or premade ones.
Some women tell me knitting and crochet work the same way. Once you train your hands and fingers, they take over the job and let your mind wonder where it will.
Thanks, everyone. I’ll try one of these methods. I do agree, the plastic assemblies really aren’t that great.
Personally I would buy some deadeyes and rig the lanyards and shrouds protypically…it improves your model extremely…IMV.
Find the CS build thread and see what I did…it pretty much is layed out with lots of photos.
Rob
Big B, I sent a PM. The Cutty you see in my avitar has handtied RL
I misspoke when I suggested piano wire. That stuff is steel, its hard to cut and it rusts.
But I’ve had a lot of good results using brass wire- the kind you buy in 9" lengths of straight pieces.
It is easy to glue straight, it paints well and it lasts forever. Rigged many a biplane that way.
As far as rigging the shrouds, sure both sides. But the ratlines tend to be something you can add as time and patience permit. So I’ve done one side at a time before, or top to bottom masts, anything to break up the task.
Just my 2 bits.
What scale are we talking about? Wire rigging is great for very small scales. I’d certainly recommend it for the tiny Airfix Cutty Sark, or the Imai/Revell 1/350 version. But if we’re talking about the 1/96 Revell kit, I find it hard to imagine rigging it with solid, unstranded wire. And frankly I can’t see any reason to try it. For one thing, it wouldn’t look right. On that scale the strands of the rope ought to be quite prominent.
I don’t think there’s much room for doubt: rigging a 1/96 ship model is a job for high-quality thread.
I do agree that breaking up the tedium of ratline rigging is a good idea - though the tedium will be much less after you get a little practice.
Alright I give up.
Just consider this: the original poster inquired about replacements of those horrible molded things.
Going to a totally hand set up job with individual dead eyes, lanyards shrouds and foot ropes is so extreme as to be somewhat incredible advice.
I for one will readily admit to not finishing any such thing in anything bigger than my Fair American.
The mere thought of doing so on my Heller Victory gives me night sweats and makes it clear I’ll never get it anywhere past the masts and standing rigging below the tops.
All of the big Connie’s I ever built used the molded dead eyes with thread tied around the top dead eyes.
I’m going to guess that the total number of fully rigged CS Revell models completed in the last decade maybe number in the low dozens.
End of rant.
Have a good weekend I need a time out.
I agree that a 1/96 full-rigged ship is not a good choice for a first attempt at individual deadeyes and lanyards. But as a first exercise in tying ratlines, the CS isn’t bad - certainly not as bad as a warship, with many more shrouds. And l agree that the…things…that come in the kits (whether injection-molded, plastic-coated thread, or “ratline looms”) are awful.
But I continue to think that rigging ratlines to scale is easier than lots of people think. Yeah, some people,due to arthritis, bad closeup vision, or other infirmities, will find it impracticable. I sympathize with those folks completely; these days I’m having my own share of problems with arthritis and eyesight. But my honest suggestion to those folks is to pick a different hobby. Building a sailing ship model entails quite a few jobs that are tougher than rigging ratlines.
Lloyd McCaffrey’s book building Ships In Miniature describes in detail about how to make rigging for smaller model sailing ships in Nickel Silver and Copper wire by using different gauges. Also how to wind it to represent rope and methods of affixing it to masts and spars etc. His book is a treatise on building ship models from wood, but many of his methods could be utilised to detail a model made from a plastic kit.
Anyone who is serious about creating authentic and realistic rigging for a clipper must at least entertain the notion of rigging the shroud lanyards(IMV) It is the stuff that makes you better modeler…win of fail.
Here is an image of my Revell CS rigger entirely protyically. I am not suggesting everyone can take the challenge…but trying is not the same as failing. Levels of experience will dictate ones ability…however tenacity and endurance can aid in prevailing. From my experiences anyway.
Rob
Time is pretty much your only adversary…If I can thread a needle anybody can.
Just take the plunge.
Rob
Rob, nice job. you gave a bit of hope to this 10 thumb modeler.
Proper tools help. I make two special tools for rigging though I have seen the same tools for sale. The two tools are a long handled hook and a long handled fork. I make them myself out of crochet tools available cheaply at craft stores. Actually, the hook can be used as is- for the fork I take a large needle and saw the eye in half to make a fork. These two tools and a good tweezer really help rigging tasks.
Go get-em…
Here is a version I did without rigging the shrouds and lanyards…but used the kits version. NOT as impressive IMV. The dedeyes and lanyards are too bulky and were very difficult to align to the very poor thin molded shrouds/ratlines.
Rob
Oh mercy. So if I want to do ratlines without the ones that came with the kit I have to buy all these special tools, tie all sorts of knots, and, forgive me, have all these special cords? What kind of wire? Man, did I open a can of worms!! I apologize to everyone!